New To Null

Monday, October 23, 2017

There was supposed to be a low sec deployment for all in the alliance of Straight Jacket Bears. This was to a friendly citadel just inside Hi sec for easy access to low, Faction Warefare Low (Kamela) and Null (KBP7-G) in Provi.

The stated object was to learn how to pvp in small groups.

Now this character, Pram Face, as previously stated has been largely industry based. He can use all the industrial ships (except the Rorqual) up to Jump Freighters, but has issues flying most frigates and destroyers and only had drones trained as a weapon system.

Over the last few months has been training frigates and destroyers and a couple of weapon systems.

So I turned up at the staging, and found that I could not fly the mimnitar stuff that they wanted to use, so bought myself a buch of executioners and a few punishers and a gnosis, as the alliance mentioned gate camps.

The frigates because they were cheap. even tech 2 fitting them the total bill was about 5 million a time. Including the gnosis and a few odds and ends I spent about 180 million.

Anyway, first night some of the Americans in alliance were on early and I was on late and we had a little roam.

Depressingly I attempted a Slasher fit as suggested by the organiser, and had the dubious honour of dying first. Dead Slasher

I then re shipped to a punisher and we killed a ferox and a Drake..DrakeFerox

This was surprising as the ferrox was caught in a belt, ratting, and the Drake warped in to help. Both died without loss.

The next day I had some time, and thought what could I do with no one around. So I broke out the gnosis and started a solo gate camp.

Warning. This is only for the terminally stupid in most areas of low sec, and I fully expected to die. Badly.

In my first hour, I caught and killed a shuttle (which just proves that some pilots are slow and stupid), and had to run away from T3's and other blingy ships that wanted to shoot me on the gate.

So, I went to work and came back that night for another try. The gate I chose was fairly low traffic, and a large portion of the traffic was interceptors, pods and cloaky haulers. the rest seemed to be big nasty looking ships, often in pairs.

Now that to me was enough. 3 different play sessions on the camping for 4 small kills.
There was a bit of hide and seek when the local inhabitants showed up in Brutix's and started shooting me, and a few others had a pop on the way.

So realistically I was bored. The gate was not busy enough with ships that I could catch or kill and with no company it simply was not fun.

If you are going to try this at home...

You do need;-
1. A second account to be eyes on the hisec side, or a small gang will keill you.
2. A good idea of which ships you can kill before the gate guns kill you.
3. Pings around the gate to retreat to.
4. Safe docking in system.
5. Willingness to lose an 80 million ship.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Out in Scalding pass, there is a constellation of stars in the top left that belong to a new player in the region.

Now in Scalding Pass this is not saying a lot, small alliances come, kick someone out and then are evicted in turn a while later. None of the really big boys care, and its a good training ground for all things Sov.

I had not operated an entosis module since my last time in Scalding Pass, when fighting against Bright Side of Death (who still hold the space they evicted me from).
It's still rather painful (the process, not the memories).

The ship of choice seems o be a Neurosis, although I have seen everything from Battlecruises down giving it a go.

There still appears to be two ways of countering them.
1. Shoot them
2. ECM Griffins.

Having now done it on two different nights, sitting orbiting a node for 25-30 minutes is not fun.
I have had more fun shoe shopping than this, and I hate shoe shopping!

The pain is that you cannot warp off while the module is operating. So some go for a ship that can shoot back and others go for tank on a ship that is cheap and rely on screaming for help.

ECM is a right pain as it kills off the entosis cycle and the entosis ship has to start again. Happened to me once on a 25 minute cycle, and I was 8 mins from the end. This protracts a dull experience into a very dull experience and the chances of the same pilot doing it several days running are small.
Its amazing how many will be washing their hair or watching some rocks grow as more interesting and valuable uses of their time... You also don't have the excuse of having to reship or find another entosis module, as you are still alive and in space.

On another note, I am off on holiday tomorrow until 2nd September so no posts till after then.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Well, I was accepted into a faction warfare corp. From log in times I can see they are mainly in the US time zone. Not unusual for me and certainly not an issue.
Someone had kindly put 10 Tristan hulls up in the station I was in, so I bought them. Outfitting the ship was the next issue.
I was aiming for a kite version with shield rigs, point and drones as skills are currently very limited.
Looking on the market I could not find any medium tech 1 shield extenders, tech 1 drone damage amps, tech 1 drones except warriors. nor could I find prop mods of right size, buying 50MN micro warp drives by mistake..

So, I had shield rigs, a nano fiber, a point, no guns and 5 warrior 1's and was set to take the world.

With no real thought I undocked looking for something to do... and I look at the status bar and find that I am in a stable system, so no point in doing plexes.

Docked back up and went to see the level 1 agent. Found, that I had to recover some data sheets from 6 jumps away and return. So I set off.

On the way found the next system was contested, but only by 0.2% so sat in the novice complex for 10 mins, earned 125 LP and system was stable again... I had made a difference!

2 Systems further on was 42% contested, no one in system so warped to large, and started orbiting the NPC at 500. Two npc wrecks and 2 player ship wrecks on grid. Timer at 21:40. So I watched local and waited. With 7 mins left on the clock 3 neutrals entered system, I swapped Dscan to 5 AU and waited.
An Orthrus landed first, closely followed by a Deimos and an interceptor. I was too busy warping out to look which one and what corp they were in.

Anyway, holiday over, I get to target system, 2 in local, both Minmitar Militia, so I start the site.

About 20 frigates in first room, so I launch all four drones and start orbiting a large object. By the time all are dead, its been a while and only me and 1 neutral in system. Dscan said an Orthrus again. But not the same person.

Safe in a mission pocket I ignored him and checked Dscan for combat probes.

While doing 350m/s towards the second acceleration gate 76km away (need to find a prop mod) saw a Tristan on dscan getting closer. Again just the two of us.

Did not think of it till he landed on grid and 5 hobgoblin II's popped out.

I ran like a big girl. If I had guns, shields or decent drones would have taken the fight. but with a point and not a lot else, no.

Warped to station and asked in local how he found me without combat probes...

Now here's a thing I did not know. As soon as I warped to the mission site it activated a public beacon that anyone can warp too.... Not good. He found me with Dscan then shipped down to what could get in a novice site.

Now I need to fit that ship. I did complete the mission about 30 minutes later though and get the 6 jumps back without incident. 1100 LP and 102,000 ISK reward.

Monday, August 14, 2017

I have kept the training queue full on Mi, which, lets face it is not that hard. It is like going back a couple of year to how the skill system used to be, Only 24 hours of training, and once over that barrier no new skills can be added.
Going back to this way of doing things, I can completely see the benefits of the current system.

The old one did force you to log in more regularly though. However, I am off on holidays soon and what with one thing and another will be away from computer for about 17 days. Now I can, on an Omega account, put half a dozen (or shall I just bite the jump cal V bullet) and not log in and no danger of missing any training....

Anyway, what to do with an Alpha?

One thing I thought I would try is Faction Warfare. So moved my rookie ship (No missions, so no crap to move) down to Minmitar space, to try it far from home. Not decided if to join Amarr or Minmitar as yet. Did not wish to join Gallente as may want access to Jita at some point...

On the way down in my rookie ship i did project discovery for a while. and earned enough for 5 canisters. I came away quite pleased, in that I kept the Tristan skin, but sold the Brutix, Dominix, Epithal and Punisher skin for enough ready isk to buy most of the skill books I can train and buy several frigates.

I arrived and put in an app to a corp that was recommended to me as alpha friendly and am now waiting...

I cannot find any ships on local market that I can use however so may be short lived unless I can find a supply.

It seems strange to be sitting in Low sec not in a corp and not having anything except civilian guns on a rookie frigate.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Now one of my corp mates attacked a NPC venture that was aggressively mining his rocks. He was dead about a minute later. I thought that sounded odd so actually listened.

The NPC mining fleets have been a thing now for about a year. I spent a little while trying to pin it down but there does not seem to be a Dev blog on the subject that I can find. Best guess is that they made an appearance in November 2016. I had not really even seen them till now.

NPC Mining fleets roam Hi sec trying to gather all the ore to either:-
1. Force players into Low or Null
2. Build a Death Star.
3. Just because.

Personally I think Number 3.

The NPC fleets do mine a staggering amount of ore, it does not appear to go anywhere.It would be an idea though for all the ore to be put to use to litter space a bit more with NPC citadels...

Anyway I did a bit of research and found that there were basically 2 ways to deal with the NPC miners. Both of them could lead to a messy death.

1. Shoot one of the mining ships. These appear to be tanked the same as a similar player ship.
2. Shoot the haulers when they arrive.

Attacking a miner spawns a response fleet. This can be any size, it can be a single frigate or a full swarm of ships up to battleships, supported by logi and ewar and acting like a proper fleet.
The only way I have found to do this is to select a target and apply rapid DPS, and then warp before the response fleet can scram you.
Doing this to a miner gives you some ore when you come back and loot the wreck, but a hauler seems to give you a faction skin for a mining ship and sometimes some ore.

The last two nights I had Oliver jump out of the worm hole, once to Amarr Space and once to Minmitar. On the first night I shot a Venture, Retriever Bestower and an Impel. I was in a max dps Hecate, Max for me is 556 unheated.
The Venture died first and all the other ventures warped off, then I warped and docked at a station. This aggression towards innocent miners does not give you a weapons timer so docking and jumping are fine. Loot was 2k of Veldspar.
The same happened with the Retriever, but with a bit more Scordite in it.
I tried an Impel next as I saw it warp in to the belt that I was sat at. This proved a slight issue. I managed to burn out my guns, but warp out as I was entering structure. The impel had not even dipped below half armour. Time to warp out was about 40 seconds.
About an hour after, I had replaced the guns and found a Bestower. This died very rapidly and warped off 22 seconds after opening fire, just as the response fleet was starting to land.

Now, the response fleet seem to stay in belt almost exactly 60 seconds from when you leave it. So warp to a safe, then 1 minute later back again

The Bestower dropped a Coveter skin, worth about 10 mill on market. So the hour I spent hunting down a set of ships and then waiting for the transport ship was not the most lucrative I have ever spent.

The next night in Minmitar space I had much more luck. The WH came out in the middle of 1.0 and 0.9 sec status systems. I went around in a big loop until I found a Mammoth on scans, then hunted them down. An hour and a half later I had shot 5.
Loot that dropped
1. Coveter Skin
2. Bowhead Skin
3. Metal Scraps
4. Endurace Skin, and 85,000 m3 of assorted high sec ore, majority being Veldspar. Estimated ore worth 12 million
5. 193,000 m3 of assorted ore from Omber to Veldspar Estimated Ore worth 32 million

Now the skins were great. I have not injected the Bowhead one, as its quite a niche ship, and not likely to be one I ever fly. Not many on market though, one for sale in Hek for 150 million and 1 buy order in Amarr for 0.01 ISK...
There are buy orders up for the Gallente and Amarr ones at 20 and 50 mill respectively. So Realistically I will sit on it till I next get to Jita and list it for 30 mill and see what happens.

Now the Ore in the wrecks was a bonus, but in a Hecate, 6-7 jumps from WH it was a pain.
Both systems had 8-10 people with 4-5 mining ships on Dscan. So I posted in local.

Free ore if you have a hauler to move it.

Then I sat for a few minutes. Then the systems started depopulating, until there were 4-5 people....

As a thought Code does not have to gank anyone, just say they have won a prize... And I am not code, and one of the systems was 0.9. Who is going to gank a T1 hauler with ore in a 0.9 system. I was genuinely going to mark the wreck blue and give it to whomever turned up.

Looking on the market there was a Miasmos (Galente Ore Hauler) for sale in system for 1.5 mill.So I docked and bought it. Wreck no 4 took 2 trips and 5 took 4 trips. That is a lot of ore. It all was taken to nearest Citadel with reprocessing and compressed. Here the ore was worth more on the market than the minerals, so moved it one jump and sold it.

Left the hauler in station and escaped back towards the nice safe wormhole that was waiting.

Found a Mobile Tractor Unit in the entrance system, someone had littered it, so shot it on the way out, to make navigation safer.

in summary 6 hauler kills, 4 skins and about 40 million ISK (Its worth less to sell once compressed) in ore that is a pain to collect.

Going to try kill enough haulers over the next few weeks to get a full set of skins, but I don't think that I will revisit afterwards.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Now I was a little bored, and possibly under the influence of a little beer last night. When I logged off, I thought I had a very funny character name, so I thought try the new Alpha stuff.

So I created a new account, and set up my character. I selected Gallente, because, well why not.
The first screens after, I admit I mainly pressed randomise simply because I have never worried about what the character portrait shows.

So now I start in space with some nonsense about being the only survivor. I see 3 Dominix wrecks all in a warp disrupt bubble.

So with Aurora burbling on about ship handling I loot the wrecks and then am attacked by a couple of Circadian Sleepers. I thought well this did not last long, and shot them with my civilian gattling gun. Too my great surprise they died as did the warp disrupt bubble.

However Aurora was now stuck. She wanted me to loot the Dominix wreck that I had already looted. I could not, as I had already done so. I could not put the scientist back and could not progress in the tutorial.

Failed at the second hurdle.

I then stupidly switched off Aurora and said yes to the fact I cannot do it again....

So now docked in Duripant station with a Velator, civilian gear no ISK, no idea where the starter missions are and a head ache.

Looking and asking in the Fed Navy Academy corp channel just got me talk about how they started last week and how Drakes and Gilas were fun....

Skill injectors have I feel a lot to answer for....

Thinking about it I do not even have the rookie channel, I assume the tutorial would have done this at a later point....

Now I have to find the ISK to get the Gallente Frigate skill book as a starter...

Ho Hum

At this stage I may or may not keep the character, and in any case the name may get banned...

So if anyone can point me in the right direction, as I have not done this for a long while, please mail in game to

Exploring 1 page of the Occator, of the 50 loss mails, only 8 were in High Sec and of these 6 were war targets.

In Viators 1 page of 50 loss mails gave me 16 dead in High Sec, about half due to Wars.

I did notice that the Viators were mainly cargo or inertial stabs in the lows with one or two shield modules in the mids. Most had a covert ops cloak.

The Occators, despite getting 4% armour resistance per level of transport ships and 35% bonus to armour repair and 100% overheat bonus on local repair and resistance mods, seemed to be largely shield tanked. The many lows were, and I say that this was from 8 ships at random, mainly istabs or other speed enhancing modules. Only 2 of the 8 were armour tanked.This does seem bizarre in the extreme.Anyway, for mainly HS use then the Occator is the clear winner for me.I will update this thread as and when I lose the ship.....